World Torn Asunder
by TheFinalResistance
Summary: Ripped from a defeated world, Harry Potter and his posh mathematician Battle Elf, Dobby, are thrown into a world on the precipice of defeat. As war looms on the horizon and old and new faces coalesce, blurring the lines between what is familiar and what is not, the two fight to turn the tide of the storm threatening to rend another world asunder. (Grey!Harry, Harry/Bellatrix)
1. Prologue

**_Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter in any way, shape or form._**

 _Presenting to you the prologue! Future chapters shall be considerably longer, but this is vital for setting the scene, and gauging the readers' interests. The pairings are currently undecided but I'm leaning towards Harry/Bellatrix. Romance will not be the driving theme of the story though._

 _Welcome to what promises to be a ride wilder than a Knight Bus driven by Dobby. Without further ado..._

* * *

"You shall not harm Harry Potter!"

Harry Potter had lost count of how many times he had heard the aforementioned cry. Despite that, he never failed to contemplate the absurdity of the context. Not when it was shouted out, not when someone ended up disemboweled, dismembered or utterly annihilated right after it, and definitely not when its source landed on their feet in front of their victim. So it was no surprise that Harry breathed a sigh of relief at the sight of Dobby the Battle Elf cleaving the wand arm of the masked figure who had dared take aim at his master. Just as the separated limb fell to the ground, a torrent of fire incinerated its former owner as an unrestrained blaze flowed from Harry's own wand.

"A bit too extreme, don't you think?" the high-pitched elf piped up in a dignified accent that itself had been the cause of many a victory, catching enemies who expected a bumbling house-elf who could only attempt to attack with a frying pan off-guard.

"Seems like your time at Oxford made you soft, Dobby," Harry commented over the screams of two Death Eaters as they too fell to bursts of flame. Tapping the little bracelet that one of the Death Eaters had latched onto his wrist, he finished, "I think that covers all of them. Now how do I get this thing off?"

Surveying the seven charred bodies around him, Harry licked his lips. He had missed this and quite enjoyed whenever he and his friend ended up in these situations. Six years of being in hiding tended to make one a bit paranoid, a tad intense even.

 _Six years._ Six years since that fateful battle at Hogwarts. If you could call it a battle. If anything, it was closer to a massacre, the combined forces of Hogwarts and what remained of the Order of the Phoenix put down in a mixture of bludgeonings at the hands of the Dark Lord Voldemort's brutal attack dogs in the form of giants and werewolves, and incisive strikes dealt by the Death Eaters, in particular the Inner Circle. _How could we have been so foolish?_ The question had haunted many a nightly dream for Harry. A ragtag group of school teachers and vigilantes battling violent extremists. He pondered this question as he stroked the berry carvings along his wand lovingly.

Even with Voldemort's Horcruxes gone and the Elder Wand's true loyalty lying with Harry, the Dark Lord had proved too much, avoiding the rebounding Killing Curse from the Elder Wand before launching a counterattack against Harry, who had seized the Elder Wand as it flew across, his catching skills honed as a Seeker not failing him. It had not been until Dobby, the house-elf who had almost lost his life in rescuing Harry before from Malfoy Manor, interfered with the battle, apparating and disapparating in the blink of an eye, pulling Harry away from the path of a descending Killing Curse from Voldemort, who had taken up his older wand again.

They had appeared in the middle of a forest somewhere far from Hogwarts. Harry, whose ears rang in the sudden silence, a violent break from the brutal screams that had polluted the air at the battleground just moments earlier, had broken down, screaming every obscenity he could think of at everything he could find. They were gone - he had seen Ron and Hermione fall, the former succumbing to Nagini's fatal bite as he attempted to free the latter, whose life had been squeezed out of her body by the snake. Neville had lived long enough to avenge them when he beheaded the snake in one fell swoop of Gryffindor's sword but the boy - no, man - had barely a second to relish his triumph before Voldemort's green light struck him, the Dark Lord enraged that the closest thing he'd had to a companion was destroyed. And this was before Harry had had time to ponder over the losses of the countless other Hogwarts students and Order members he had seen lose their lives in a lost cause.

Dobby had knocked him out after that, putting him to sleep for at least two days so that he hadn't had the chance to go back and be his brash self again. When Harry returned to consciousness in a tent that the house-elf had conjured, he had received news of Voldemort's victory from Dobby. The battle at Hogwarts had been complete and utter destruction, a carnage unlike any before wrought upon those who opposed the Death Eaters. Of course, Hogwarts had remained standing - Voldemort being true to his promise of not wanting to spill precious magical blood if he could avoid. The castle would be needed to raise future generations of "the right sort" of magicals, after all.

The duo of wizard and elf and retreated into obscurity after that, knowing that they were not in a position to take up arms against the oncoming darkness, and sought refuge in the muggle world. In one final stab at his enemy, Harry had had Dobby vanish every object in the Headmaster's Office at Hogwarts, clearing up centuries, if not millennia, of knowledge that Dumbledore and his predecessors had accumulated, and saving it all from falling into Voldemort's blood-stained hands. Severus Snape, the final holder of the office before one of the minor Death Eaters had ascended to the role, had not made many additions of his own to the collections. The failure of the castle's wards because of the battle had assisted Dobby's endeavour, which would have been nigh impossible otherwise.

Just as Harry had predicted when going into hiding, Voldemort had not deigned to break the Statute of Secrecy. Why bother revealing the Wizarding World to the muggles when you could just keep them away, letting them wallow in their own helpless miseries. Helpless was correct, indeed, because muggle authorities had remained without an inkling of knowledge over why strange happenings manifested themselves all over Britain. Strange weather patterns with unusual bouts of cold and fog were just as inexplicable as the increase in murders where the criminals left not a single trace - or sometimes, mutilation to the point that it rendered the victims completely unrecognizable - if there was anything left of them.

Throughout the past six years, Harry Potter had remained the proud owner of the title "Undesirable No. 1", top of the Ministry hit list, yet not as big a target as he had once been. Over time, it appeared, Voldemort had decided that he did not merit much attention at all, since he had obviously not been any threat in the half-decade. But that was purely speculation on Harry's part. The Dark Lord had receded after the establishment of the new order. Why, it had been unclear. The young wizard posited it had something to do with the destruction of his Horcruxes. The paranoid Slytherin would certainly have removed himself from the public sphere until he had other ways to ensure his immortality, lest someone catch him unawares.

Of course, the new Ministry, under the reconvened Wizengamot, which was under the influence of the Inner Circle of the Death Eaters, was very much a manifestation of the will of Voldemort. There had not been a single muggleborn admitted into Hogwarts in that time. Which by itself did not sound as bad as most would have thought of, except for the fact that every potential muggleborn student was put down by the Ministry. A form of euthanasia, they called it. These children would die anyway as their untrained magic consumed them. So why not give them a "merciful" end? At least they would not ruin the Statute of Secrecy.

And so, Harry and Dobby had lived out their lives in the British countryside, moving only when they happened upon the chance Death Eater that they would put down and pack up shop, not wanting to take the risk that they had been found out. Dumbledore's resources which Dobby had brought from the Headmaster's Office had been nothing short of a godsend for Harry - the more he had perused them, the more he realised the foolishness of the cause that he had fought for, the foolishness of the former Headmaster, who had believed that a boy wizard would triumph over one of the greatest students to have passed through Hogwarts. Living off of his parents' wealth that he had cleared out from Gringotts before it too was taken over by the Ministry, coupled with the odd jobs that Harry worked wherever he moved, had given him a tad too much time. And too much time meant there was lots of room to immerse himself in the countless tomes over the Dark Arts, Defence, Arithmancy, Runes, all sorts of wild arcane magic that Harry had never even dreamed of. Or perhaps had dreamed of before he came to Hogwarts, where his imagination and desire to hurt Dudley with magic had been quashed, replaced with the joys of floating feathers and turning matchsticks into needles.

But alas, all that time and knowledge of magic that could be used to hurt him, coupled with the awareness that he was still technically wanted, also meant that there was a tad too much room for paranoia. For better or worse, Harry had developed a tendency to be constantly vigilant. He was not Mad-Eye Moody by a long shot, but he had become rather trigger-happy, having developed a proclivity for destructive magic, with a particular affinity for fire. After all, better a Death Eater burnt to a crisp than him being dead. When Dobby had realised that The Great Wizard Harry Potter Sir was becoming adept at protecting himself, he had decided that it was time for him to take a well-deserved break as well. And that was when he had piped up with perhaps his most unusual wish of all.

 _"So let me get this straight, Dobby," Harry groaned, rubbing his temple as he looked up from the Muggle newspaper he had been reading. "You want to go to university?"_

 _Bouncing up and down on his soles, the elf exclaimed, "Not just any university, Harry Potter, sir! Dobby is wanting to go to Oxford!"_

 _It was with that that he had thrust a letter at Harry, which had caused the wizard's jaw to drop as far down as it was humanly possible._

 _"How in the world did you get accepted there?!"_

 _"Dobby is working a little bit of magic. Dobby is studying maths when he is being at Hogwarts, sir! He is not able to go to wizarding schools so Dobby is deciding, he is going to muggle schools!"_

 _"That's all well and good, Dobby," Harry said, knowing that everything was well and good with the elf since nothing ever was normal around him. "But how did you get in? You know they need A-Levels, right? What magic did you work here?"_

 _"Dobby is taking his A-Levels, Harry Potter, sir! Great Headmaster Dumblydore help Dobby take exams. Dobby has A's in maths, physicsies, chemistry and economies! Dobby is disguising as human and taking his exams! Dobby is going to be doing that at Oxfords."_

 _"I- hmm."_

 _It took Harry a moment to collect himself from that, but all he could add was, "So how do you intend to finance this endeavour?"_

 _"Dobby is going to use magicsies to make sure professor muggles don't ask Dobby for money!"_

 _Well, Harry thought, the elf certainly had no shortage of a lack of ethics._

It had turned out that having a house-elf who had a degree in mathematics was the best thing that had happened to Harry. He finally had an instructor for Arithmancy, something that Dobby had turned out to be, for lack of better word, a wizard at. Elf magic could be quantified in the same way as for wizards, and Dobby had turned out to be somewhat of a pioneer in the field, considering not a single elf in the past had embarked on the bizarre journey of unifying muggle mathematics and magic. Not to mention, his newly acquired received pronunciation made Dobby a more commanding personality than before, convincing Harry - whether true or not - that the elf knew his stuff.

And so, that was how Harry Potter and Dobby the elf found themselves in their current situation. They had been attempting to peacefully pass through a little town on their way to London when they realised that they had the splendid luck of going through a muggle settlement that had caught Death Eater eyes that night. One thing led to another and their interference resulted in a melee of sorts, Harry going at the Death Eaters, the Death Eaters at Harry, Dobby at the Eaters, the Death Eaters at Dobby, and whether on purpose or not, the Death Eaters at other Death Eaters.

"I still say it was your _Expelliarmus_ that identified us," Dobby said matter-of-factually.

Harry, who would never get over the fact that Dobby could say things matter-of-factually, shook his head cheekily.

"You'd think they'd stop associating that spell with me after six years. But really, do we know what this is?"

Harry was still fiddling with the bracelet that was around his wrist. One of the Death Eaters had tossed it at him right before Harry had cut him down with a _Sectumsempra_ , and it had wasted no time in wrapping itself around his wrist. Dobby walked up to have a closer look at it, tracing his long fingers over the lines carved along the curve of the bronze metal. There didn't seem to be any unlocking mechanism on it. The metal formed a continuous loop, not a single line along it that could have indicated where it opened or closed.

"You can't get a reading on it either, huh?" asked Harry.

Dobby shook his head.

"No, not a single pulse of magic. I've never heard of anything like this. Have you tried running some diagnostic charms on it? Don't try to split it open though."

Harry nodded, pulling out Elder Wand and tapping the bracelet. His blood ran cold.

"I felt that, Harry Potter," Dobby spoke hastily, alarm clear in his voice. "There's magic in it!"

And that was certainly the case. And what magic it was, Harry couldn't help but feel amazed, as the metal started to glow, the carved lines flashing every shade of colour between white and black. But that wasn't all there was to it. The magic emanating from the bracelet tugged at Harry's own magic. It tugged at Harry's very being itself, as if trying to drag him somewhere. By now, Harry was racing through every spell he knew in an effort to cast off the cursed object.

" _Relashio!_ Dobby, it's pulling me away!" he growled.

A tug of war waged between his own magic and that of the bracelet, each trying to pull the other into itself. With each passing second, Harry felt his hold on his magic loosen, the tendrils of the opposing force wrapping themselves around him. He couldn't tell if he was imagining it or not but at that moment, the wizard could have sworn that his vision was blurring. No, it wasn't his vision, it was-

"Harry Potter, sir, you're disappearing!" Dobby leaped forward.

And he was right, Harry knew. It wasn't his vision that was fading, but only what he could see of himself. While his own body started to blur and fade, the surroundings remained crystal clear. At least until he felt a tug around himself, not so different from that of a portkey activating, but much stronger, enveloping his whole body. And just as Dobby the Battle Elf wrapped his limbs around Harry Potter, there was a blinding flash of light.

And with that, the duo vanished.

* * *

 _And that's Chapter 0, the prologue. Future chapters, as mentioned before, will be longer in length. Any and all questions will be answered as the story goes._

 _Please leave a review. All sorts of praise and constructive criticism is welcome and helps in improving this work._


	2. Crossing the Rift

_Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter in any way, shape or form._

 _This update is coming after a long time. I've had a lot going on as I go from one phase of my life to another right now but things are all settled now and I've got lots of time and will to write. So expect to have more updates much quicker now. Here we go._

* * *

"What just happened?!"

Such were the first coherent words that Harry Potter growled when he righted himself and stood tall on his feet, looking around. Whatever magic that bracelet had wrought upon him had pulled the wizard-elf duo into a suffocating blackness, so very much like the void that every wizard or witch found themselves squeezed through when they apparated except for the fact that this one had seemed to knock out so much more than just Harry's breath.

The oppressive pressure had nearly crushed him before relenting and pulling on him with such force that he counted it one of his life's many miracles that he still had use of limbs. _Hell, I'm lucky to still have my limbs at all after_ _that._ Just as the force had threatened to rip him apart, the wizard had found himself materialising several feet over a field of grass. Fortunately for him, Dobby's quick reflexes led to the elf cushioning the ground just before they hit it.

"Seems we're in the middle of nowhere, Harry Potter," Dobby observed, surveying the wild, grassy plains that spread out in every direction with no soul in sight to occupy them except for the birds flying overhead.

"Well, yes..." Harry mumbled before his attention snapped back to the bracelet on his wrist.

The humming of energy that he had felt so strongly from it earlier had gradually faded into a faint pulsing and by now, had nearly vanished. It was, as of this moment, little more than a piece of metal bound to his wrist. If that was really so...

" _Diffindo._ "

As expected, the bracelet split on one side, allowing Harry to slide it off.

"This has _him_ written all over it," Harry commented, not using the Dark Lord's name which held a Taboo and continuing when Dobby nodded in agreement. "What was he trying to accomplish though, toss me into the middle of nowhere? Where are we even?"

"I don't think it would be incorrect to conclude we're still in Britain," the house elf noted.

Looking around, Harry could only think that it wasn't safe to conclude they were anywhere at all, considering they were in the most generic of uninhabited surroundings, with green plains extending as far as he could see. Perhaps it was a house elf thing. Dobby had certainly showed an innate understanding - or at least some sort of connection, regardless of its strength - of the magic that surrounded them. _Natural energy_ , he had called it, the magic that permeates the air, almost as much a part of its domain as the trees that grew on a certain region's land or the fauna that inhabited it.

Over the past years, Harry himself had developed an awareness of this magic, among other things. He was more than capable of being aware of its presence and noting how the air tended to get dense and more suffocating whenever they were in hostile quarters. But the ability to discern the differences in similar energies so keenly so as to determine their location was an ability that certain magical creatures seemed to be more naturally disposed towards than wizards and witches.

"Alright then," Harry finally decided. "I say we go show this to ol' Edgar. You know what to do, Dobby."

Edgar - no first name, no last name, just Edgar - was his contact when it came to acquiring illegal (considering selling anything to Harry Potter had been deemed against the law, that may or may not be very questionable). Having spent years working in Knockturn Alley, the man had developed an incredible contact network and was Harry and Dobby's point of contact whenever they needed to have any artefact they encountered examined or just wanted to acquire a new pair of dragon-hide boots.

The man had - to Harry's great fortune - decided that the most important thing was business, and as long as Harry was a paying customer, he had no regard for how legal their transactions were, and whether or not he was the government's enemy number one or one thousand.

Given the various kinds of Taboos and wards that were in place around Britain's wizarding communities, Harry was rather cautious of attempting to apparate within the confines of Diagon Alley or Knockturn Alley - though at this point in time, there was little difference between either except for the fact that the former was much worse for wear these days.

Dobby, on the other hand, with his elf magic, had more freedom when it came to manoeuvring around said wards and hence served as the one performing the apparition every time the duo needed to get into sensitive areas. As long as Harry kept his own magic suppressed and his face concealed, all suspicion was thrown off.

And so, Dobby snapped his fingers and within a few moments of an intense tightening feeling, the two found themselves in a corner of Knockturn Alley, Dobby completely disillusioned and Harry concealed under a hood - the standard uniform of any of the Alley's customers and thus completely within the realm of the ordinary.

"Aye, watch it," someone complained, nearly bumping into Harry. "Idiots always apparating in the way."

Ignoring him, Harry turned the corner and smoothly slid through a door into a dilapidated little shop where- _Wait, what,_ Harry thought, his train of thought crashing to a halt. As dodgy as Edgar could often be about his sources, the man took pride in how well he maintained his wares and the shop itself where he housed them. This, on the other hand, was anything but what Harry remembered.

With walls lined with shelves of rotting wood containing all manners of wizened objects that curiously resembled body parts and potions ingredients, Harry couldn't help but think of this place as a bastardisation of Borgin and Burkes and an apothecary.

"What are you lookin' at?" came a raspy growl.

Harry, still under his hood, turned to face the owner of the voice behind the counter, a man of medium height with dark black hair but a face that looked like it had prematurely aged. He was eyeing Harry warily with a look that was a mix between irritation and caution. He probably didn't want to scare a potential customer away, regardless of how much he hated talking to one.

"Edgar," Harry commanded. "I'm looking for Edgar."

"And who the 'ell is that?"

Choosing his words carefully, Harry continued, "I was told by a contact that he works in Knockturn Alley somewhere around here."

"He ain't workin' here, that's for sure," the man shook his head and slapped the countertop. "And between you and me, I think yer contact played ya. I woulda known if some fella' with that name worked around the Alley. And believe you me, there ain't any Edgars around 'ere."

Not letting any surprise show on what little of his face might be visible, Harry turned around imperiously and walked out of the shop, hearing the establishment's owner's sigh of frustration. Harry did not need the knot in his gut at this moment to tell him that something was not exactly right. He had seen Edgar a week ago in this very shop. Hell, he had shared a Firewhisky with him.

Someone like that didn't suddenly disappear without a trace. And even if he had packed up and left or even killed, this shop looked like it had been here for a while - a bit too long, even, if Harry was honest - and the state of ruin it was in couldn't have been a conscious decor idea for whoever started a new shop here within the last week.

An invisible tugging at his knees brought Harry's attention back to Dobby, who was still invisible but seemed to be signalling the wizard to follow him. Stumbling and fumbling through the people walking through the street, who were more than happy to hurl their abuse as the invisible Dobby bumped into them at Harry. It was only after the two were in an empty little nook off the street that housed only a myriad of rubbish bins that the pair stopped and the house elf became visible again, waving what could only be a newspaper.

"We are in so much trouble, Harry Potter," Dobby sputtered uncharacteristically, something Harry hadn't seen him do since the days of his old ways.

Seizing the paper that the elf shoved into his hands, Harry flipped it around to gaze at the front page. Bold black letters spelled out "The Daily Prophet" at the top but it wasn't the typography that caught Harry's eye. Try as he might, he couldn't hold in his gasp at the date that stared back at him underneath said bold lettering. He did not have it in him to continue reading further as he struggled to process this.

"August 1984?" Harry whispered, but his voice rose as he continued. "That's impossible!"

His first instinct had been that his friend had shoved a useless old newspaper at him. Except the smooth, light paper with its deep black words could not have been more than a day old, unless someone had been going around casting very strong preservation charms on newspapers and then disposing of them where Dobby could find them.

"Where did you find this?"

"I snatched it from a newspaper stand, where else?" the elf answered in a matter-of-fact manner. "This is not a joke."

"This is, what, two decades ago and-"

"No, it was not a mistake either, I assure you," Dobby interrupted, sensing Harry's objection. "I cross-checked with information sources around the Alley, including with the calendars hanging at Flourish and Blotts - speaking of which, the mere fact that there's a Flourish and Blotts means all is not as we know it!"

Dobby had a point there, Harry allowed himself to admit. Flourish and Blotts had been destroyed years ago in a Death Eater raid along with a large portion of Diagon Alley for the sin of having aided and abetted Muggleborns by selling them knowledge of the Wizarding World back in the days before all went to hell. _Talk about guilty by_ _association_ , he mused bitterly.

Harry put both his hands behind his head and sighed, not making any effort to conceal his frustration and the tinge of fear that resided in his heart at the revelation of these new details and the possibilities that they entailed.

"So we've travelled back in time," he muttered. "Fucking hell, _he_ really wanted me out of the way. But it's impossible to travel back this far in time."

Smiling a wry smirk, Dobby spoke up, "If you think that's shocking, then you might want to read more of that paper beyond just the date."

"Huh, let's see now, amazing what made the front page in the old days, new cauldron regul-"

"Next to that!"

Harry's eyes shot up as he turned his sight to the adjacent headline.

"No!" he exclaimed, unable to find any other words as his mind reeled from the text.

 ** _Aurors Suspect Death Eater Involvement in Brighton Building Collapse  
_**

 _The Department of Magical Law Enforcement released a statement yesterday, claiming that it suspected Death Eater involvement in the collapse of a flat complex in the predominantly Muggle city of Brighton that took place a week ago at midnight and left only three of the residents alive but in critical condition._

He skimmed through the rest of the article that talked about how new information on magical signatures picked up by a Muggleborn relative of one of the victims contributed to the DMLE - which had previously not investigated the Muggle incident - believing that the Death Eaters and their magic had been the source of the seemingly innocuous, by wizarding standards, collapse.

The glaring problem for Harry, on the other hand, was that Death Eater activity, especially at such a large scale, had been at an all time low between the period of Voldemort's defeat at his Godric's Hollow and Harry's first year at Hogwarts. With the loss of their leader, the group had disbanded for the most part and ceased operating on a large scale. Which would mean-

"Are you thinking what I'm thinking?" he asked Dobby, slowly enunciating ever word.

"I- I did encounter some readings that posited... possibilities in my time perusing muggle physics at the university," the elf paused. "But that's all they were, suppositions. That some radical interpretations of certain theories hypothesise that the universe - or the multiverse - as they call it is not biased in favour of certain outcomes but instead contains a world for every possibility. And, and-"

"And we're in one where things went differently after, well, I don't even know where they went differently," Harry completed, confirming that they were indeed on the same train of thought. "So the Death Eaters are more open in this world for some reason. Fuck, what if that bastard never died here? Do I even exist? Did I ever?"

A flood of questions overwhelmed his mind as he struggled to comprehend what had happened. Somehow they had managed to land themselves in not just a time that was decades before the one they lived in, but they had also travelled sideways into an... _alternate universe_. Despite all his experience with magic, Harry couldn't help but taste the foreignness of the phrase, a concept which seemed like the stuff of fantasy beyond even the imagination of wizards and witches.

"Those all sound like topics worth investigating," Dobby piped up, slowly fading into invisibility. "But small steps, Harry Potter. I think you ought to see Diagon Alley first. That's going to be shock enough for you. It certainly threw me off."

Nodding, Harry left their hiding place, crumpling up the newspaper and throwing it into his magically expanded robe pocket. As they climbed up the narrow opening that connected Knockturn Alley to their destination, Harry threw his hood back just as Dobby shimmered into sight. If Death Eaters really were going around terrorising the populace and Diagon Alley was still populated, it would not be the best of impressions to go parading around in a suspicious hood.

The house elf had a similar thought as he magically swapped his outfit for what seemed to be a pillow case, one of the standard uniforms of a common elf. Of course, Dobby had made sure that the fabric was impeccably clean and appeared a tad too refined compared to the standard pillow cases that one usually found on elves. Harry was sure he heard his friend whisper words that sounded suspiciously like _"the things I do to blend in"_.

"You weren't kidding."

Those were all the words Harry spoke as he stepped foot onto the street that had been in ruins the last time he had seen it. Instead of the smouldering remains of buildings, it was the sight of countless intact shops, each with its own eccentricities, under the sun that greeted the wizard. Between the relatively small crowd and a slight air of a lack of maintenance, it wasn't exactly what Harry remembered from his early years at Hogwarts but it was a world - _or universe_ \- apart from what it had later turned into.

The sense of foreboding and discomfort could not be concealed though as the pair walked up the street, Harry carefully but casually looking around to make it appear like he was familiar with the place and thus not to arouse suspicion that he was a new visitor and thus easy pickings for the nastily inclined.

Despite the fact that the surroundings were populated and intact, Harry knew by the subdued nature of the people walking about, who looked straight ahead as they moved and purposely minded their own business, that all was not well and that he was walking amidst tension that could be cut with a knife.

As they passed by familiar locations such as Florean Fortescue's Ice Cream Parlour, Madam Malkin's and the ever-present Ollivander's, Harry spoke up,"I say we head to Flourish and Blotts. Their history section has got to have material that'll help us. Right now we're just grasping in the dark."

Dobby merely nodded in agreement.

The trip didn't take long and soon they were close to their destination. The sight of Gringotts, the wizarding bank, looming over them a short distance away made Harry wonder if all the money he'd stashed into his expanded pockets was going to be of any use in this world. What if for some reason they didn't trade in galleons here?

He could always resort to more questionable methods of gaining what he needed, he knew, but it was a point of curiosity either way. Running for your life and surviving in a world that was out to get you did have the effect of pushing certain morals such as paying for goods lower on the list of one's priorities.

It didn't take the two long after ducking into the bookshop to find the history section. It had been a choice between that and 'current affairs' but Harry decided that the former was the better choice to gain some sort of grounding.

"You know, Dobby," remarked Harry, running his fingers across the spines of the books that filled the shelves in front of him. "Back in... our world, I'd have found at least five books with my name on them by now in this spot. I suspect we're not really going to find anything about me here. What if I wasn't hunted down in this godforsaken place? Or what if I'm already dead?"

As his voice trailed off, Dobby commented, "Either does hint at the state of things a bit. The Dark Lord might not have been defeated by you and might be out there somewhere. That would explain the bold Death Eater activity we read about."

"You saw the people outside. All they wanted to do was get their stuff done and get the hell out of here. This is like the time he came out in the open last time."

"Let's not be hasty though. This is all conjecture."

As if in response to Dobby's words, an explosion sounded outside the building, sending ripples coursing through the structure of the establishment, causing the books to rock in their shelves and the few people inside to stumble. The moment of absolute quiet following the noise was shattered by the crescendo of screams that permeated from the outside.

"Follow me!"

Harry signalled his partner after him as he made haste to the entrance of the shop, his body reacting on instinct as he felt a rush of adrenaline that he had not experienced in a while fill his blood, making it rush with the thrill of the unknown and the possibility of battle. When he'd last felt this way, he could not remember. The losses of those he cared about in addition to the overwhelming odds against him in his world had turned him into someone who fought battles of attrition since that was all that was realistic.

But this was different. Everything had been taken away from him after all. If he was in a new world, all the old rules were out the window. After all, he didn't have people he cared about here and thus hadn't lost them and was not in danger of losing them either. Nor, it appeared, was there the threat of a nigh omnipotent Voldemort at the moment.

It was, for all intents and purposes, a new lease on life in a world that could be anything. A world where all could yet not be lost. He had not had something besides himself and Dobby to fight for in a long, long time. Here, he simultaneously had nothing to fight for and yet... everything. He wasn't sure how that added up perfectly but as Gryffindor courage spilled over past Slytherin caution, the calculus made sense.

As Harry's hand closed around the Elder Wand, he sensed that the wand agreed with him and his state. It had not tasted direct battle in a while and the mere possibility of heading into one had the Deathstick thrum with power and anticipation. The panicked voice of the bookshop clerk, probably yelling at him not to go outside, was drowned by the rush of blood in the wizard's ears as he stepped out.

Events were already in motion as robed figures in familiar skeletal masks unleashed curse after curse around them, targeting both people and buildings. Their movements, despite their apparent randomness, were precise for the most part. They were out to kill. While they weren't going about with the greatest organisation, their methods were twistedly efficient.

Before Harry had even made a move, there were flashes of light as new figures clad in deep red robes appeared on the battlefield by what could only be Portkeys. Aurors, Harry inferred from their outfits and from how they began hurling their own spells at the attacking Death Eaters.

The Aurors' arrival galvanised several of the civilians, some of whom turned back from their retreat or rushed out from the shops around to join the fray. Harry clenched his jaw; this could be a double-edged sword. While it provided the Aurors with backup, it also indirectly decreased their own effectiveness since they had to also defend the civilians now in addition to just attacking - a combination of good law enforcement conscientiousness and official protocol.

"Need a hand there, Auror?" Harry called as his spell shot past the shoulder of a young Auror before expanding horizontally and cutting through two of the Death Eaters with ease.

The woman whipped around to see who had helped her, her dark eyes meeting Harry's own before widening.

"Auror Potter!" she exclaimed. "Sir, I- I thought you were away!"

Harry was caught off guard for a split second by her comment, which had raised suspicions in him about who she had been referring to, before he refocused on the task at hand. The Auror appeared to have realised her error too, as she narrowed her eyes as her voice took on a more official tone.

"I mistook you for someone else. Be careful, sir, these Death Eaters are dangerous. You are advised to flee while we engage the threat!"

Harry's lips curled up in a dangerous smirk.

"I assure you, you needn't worry about me. Also, duck."

Eyes widening, the Auror ducked as several flashes of ominous green and purple curses flew over her, missing her by an inch and crashing into what could only be described as a circular silver shield that had materialised in front of Harry. The spells dissipated and the shield vanished, revealing a barrage of spells from the Elder Wand that cleanly knocked the guilty Death Eaters off their feet.

The Auror stood back up, a grateful expression gracing her face in addition to the fear in her eyes. _Newbie_ , Harry inferred. Before she had any time to say a word, she was already engaged in another battle.

"I imagine you want me playing defence," Dobby commented offhandedly, appearing next to Harry, clothed in his deep green battle robes, their padded armour giving the elf a bulkier than usual appearance.

"Take out as many as you want," Harry responded. "But yes, make sure we don't die. Not that I'm worried."

And with that, the wizard spun his wand over his head, a leathery whip snaking its way out from the tip of it and sweeping several Death Eaters off their feet and smashing them into the nearest wall.

"You get one warning!" Harry called out to everyone who was withing hearing distance amidst the chaos of Diagon Alley. "You can either let yourself get arrested by our Auror friends here and possibly live for a little longer or you can get slaughtered if you'd rather continue this trail of destruction."

" _Crucio!_ " came several cries followed by jets of red light that coalesced upon Harry, who stood there without any obvious care in the world.

The shouts and screams urging him to get out of the way quickly gave way to gasps of shock as the spells dissipated as they came very close to their target. Muttering a quiet thanks to Dobby, Harry sprung into action with one last comment:

"You were warned."

The Death Eaters stood no chance as the bolts of lightning flying from the newcomer's wand met their targets, frying their victims, who could only scream in terror before they were silenced forever. Harry couldn't help but frown to himself for a moment though. While he definitely fell the rush of adventure and thirst for battle within him, he was having to exert himself unusually more to achieve the effects of his spells amidst the fatigue from his and Dobby's earlier otherworldly journey that was making itself known once again. _Guess inter-dimensional travel does have a bit of lag._ He'd have to be clean and precise with this until he could rest up.

His intervention had the effect of giving the battle new life as the two sides traded increasingly dangerous spells, reinforcements arriving for both parties by the minute, but more so for the Death Eaters.

As the Aurors' numbers dwindled, most eyes were directed on the green-eyed messy-haired individual who was burning his way through any and all parties that charged at him and then some.

"You have quite a few tricks up your sleeve there, boy!"

Harry turned around to see that it was a middle-aged Auror wearing robes that indicated a higher-rank who had called out to him from some distance away.

"I'm sure you'll be wanting a conversation later," Harry drawled in response. "I hope I look good in your report."

Before the man had a chance to respond to his cheek, another explosion ripped through the air, shattering whichever windows had remained intact after the initial explosion that had rocked Diagon Alley and sending most of the gathered wizards and witches flying back.

"Well, well, well," growled a deep amplified voice that Harry could only think of as predatory. "Is this the best of the esteemed Aurors? Dwindling to the Dark Lord's new recruits?"

Harry, who stood tall, having held his feet firm, identified the source of the sound as a lone man walked forward from the direction the magical ripple had come from. He stalked forward in a slow yet threatening walk, his black robes billowing around him with each step. His short grey hair complemented the calm grey eyes that threatened to unleash the obvious insanity that his twisted smirk betrayed.

"Fuckin' hell, it's Mulciber," someone behind Harry whispered, loud enough for him to catch it.

He didn't need to hear the other scattered mutterings of "butcher", "flee-on-sight" and "backup" that permeated the air to understand that Mulciber wasn't a small deal here. While he recognised the name, he hadn't had the pleasure of engaging the Death Eater in his own world before so he wasn't very familiar with how different this man was.

"And this," the man now identified as Mulciber growled, kicking the corpse of a fallen Death Eater. "These are the likes of the fools who think they can fight for the Dark Lord? Standards seem to have fallen for us all, don't you agree?"

The last question was asked to no one in particular yet people from all sides, including the few remaining Death Eaters stepped back.

"Since you all seem to have pissed yourself, I might as well get things going myself," Mulciber said, bringing his wand up in a slashing gesture.

Harry, who had immediately recognised the movement, sprung into action, his wand flowing with power that the Elder Wand was all too willing to channel at the fire that Mulciber had conjured and was currently growing and expanding into chimaera.

The threat of the oncoming Fiendfyre had sent the surviving Aurors hastily retreating as they attempted to usher all the Alley's occupants out of there over the screams of the crowd. Some people, on the other hand, stood frozen in fear before they could gather their wits, knowledgeable of the threat the fire posed and having decided that there was no chance for them to escape the coming onslaught.

But right before the first fire beast struck, a gushing sound filled the air and water poured out in seemingly impossible volumes from Harry's wand, striking the cursed fire with a chilling sizzle as it attempted to douse it.

"You really don't know what you're up against, do you?" Mulciber called out, a hint of amusement laced with anger in his rough voice.

Harry merely responded by flicking his wand up, grimacing inwards from the toll it took on him. He definitely needed a rest. But the effect was instantaneous. The water that had been flooding the street rushed up, defying gravity and began to encircle the raging fire beasts, pushing them back and denying them the chance to grow by consuming anything. Within seconds, the inferno was contained within a towering sphere of water that contracted as soon as Harry flicked the wand back down.

The Death Eater's eyes widened as the spell doused every bit of the Fiendfyre, his surprise working to Harry's benefit since the man was unable to attempt to feed his cursed fire more of his magic.

"Seems like someone knows how to play," Mulciber growled. "I'll enjoy ending you."

The barrage of bone-breaking curses that hurtled towards Harry were repelled by a sweeping movement of the green-eyed man's wand, which countered with a deeper shade of spell light, unleashing multiple bone-liquefying curses that their target dodged in quick movements.

It was pretty obvious to Harry what kind of fighter his opponent was. Mulciber was evidently strong enough that his reputation preceded him and caused the Aurors present there to retreat rather than engage him. Yet, he had quickly become enraged at how his attempt to burn everything had been countered in a short amount of time. Harry was familiar with his type: they weren't used to challenges and when they encountered one, they quickly began to lose the plot in their furious attempts to decimate whatever stood up to them.

The two continued trading spells, Harry merely defending himself against every attempt at his life by summoning bits and pieces of the wreckage around him, waiting for an opening to strike his enemy down with a sharp strike. After all, the risk was too high to launch a blazing offensive considering their location even if he had been feeling at the top of his game, and his actions would be raising enough eyebrows as it was.

Mulciber had drawn closer to Harry with each and every spell of his own, his rage building. Now as the two wizards stood only metres apart, the man slowed down his assault, gazing curiously at Harry, shoulders heaving from the effort.

"I'll give you this," he spoke, his voice calmer than Harry had ever heard it. "No one has ever survived this long against me. Tell me, wizard, why do you choose to fight me and not with me?"

Seeing Harry raise his eyebrow, he continued, "You've seen your cowardly associates back away and let you fight this alone. I have seen you fight. You and I are more similar in ways than are obvious. I can only imagine how true that must be when you're not fucking holding back against me and mocking me."

His voice had slowly started to slip into the growling that Harry was more familiar with from him.

"I prefer not to make a flashy mess when I can do things much more neatly. There's less to clean up," Harry shrugged, flicking his wand. "And I'm afraid I'm not feeling very well today. It's been a long day."

Mulciber was quick to conjure a physical shield, dispelling the incoming spell with ease before shaking his head.

"I suppose your methods have their merits. Perhaps when we meet again, you will not be as foolish as you were today and fight for these mudbloods. Pure blood is an increasingly rare quality. Pure talent, I'm afraid, even more so. If you were to see the error of your ways, I'm sure the Dark Lord would be willing to forgive you for the mess you've made here. Or will you be a mudblood-loving fool and fight for the world's undeserving half-breeds?"

"Funny, I could be a 'mudblood' myself," Harry mused, unleashing a lightning stream from his wand that ricocheted off of Mulciber's shield.

"That would be... quite the waste. Call me a betting man but I would be willing to bet you're not. But I digress. All is not wasted today. We shall meet again, wizard. Until then, consider this a parting gift."

The wicked, maniacal smile returned to replace the serious look that Mulciber had had on his face during the past few moments. Behind his shield, he thrust his wand up at the sky, the instrument glowing an eerie green. But he was not the only duelist with a crazed expression, as a twisted smirk had begun to spread across Harry's face.

"Now we can't have that, can we?" Harry asked darkly, snapping his fingers.

"What the fuck?!"

And so was the first reaction from a nameless onlooker that filled the air as Mulciber let out a loud, shockingly high-pitched scream as his raised arm collapsed, his wand falling to the ground. The Death Eater slowly lowered his neck, a look of disbelief etched across his features as he gazed down at the short spear that had pierced his chest, right through where his heart was supposed to be, and where blood was rapidly beginning to flow out of him.

As more shocked exclamations began to fill the air and a short figure in green materialised behind the collapsing Death Eater, Harry shook his head at Mulciber.

"I told you: No flashy messes today. Also, meet Dobby, he's a battle elf."

* * *

 _That's that for today. As mentioned before, I'll be quick with my updates now. Please leave a review. Constructive criticism is always welcome, and any and all reviews contribute to wanting to write more for my readers._

 _Until next time._


End file.
